Digital Marketing 101.

The importance of marketing to any business cannot be over emphasized. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the success or otherwise of any business depends on the effectiveness of its marketing. This explains why companies spend billions yearly on marketing.

However, marketing as we know it is undergoing the most disruption since the invention of television. –the internet. Internet now has a pervasive influence on every aspect of our lives, from education to health to media consumption to even religion. And marketing is no exception.

GroupM, the New York-based world’s largest advertising media company, has predicted that global ad spending in digital media, which is expected to reach $95 billion this year, will increase 14 percent next year and comprise 20 percent share of ad budgets.

So, what is driving this shift and making even an iconic advertiser like Procter & Gamble, (a company that pioneered some of the traditional practices used by companies the world over) to be shifting its marketing dollars online? I think the answer is simple enough: digital marketing trump traditional marketing

DIGITAL VS TRADITIONAL MARKETING

Traditional marketing channels are characterised by their one way and message driven nature unlike the interactive and consumer driven nature of digital media. Compared with traditional marketing, digital marketing has some clear advantages over traditional marketing:

1. Measurability: with digital marketing, you can take guess work out of your marketing. Every element of digital marketing can be measured. Meaning you can track effectiveness, identify what works and what does not and based on the result, optimize for superior performance accordingly

2. Precise targeting: Digital marketing enables you to avoid marketing waste by precisely targeting the right audience, at the right time and, at the right place. The online landscape offers incredible insights into the behavior of users. Which websites do target audience visit? Where do they go to read the news? Where do they get product review o do they talk to before making a purchase decision? This unprecedented access to the consumer has opened the doors to marketing segmentation and personalization that wasn’t possible before

3. Reach: With digital marketing, you can reach a wider of audience with limited budget

4. Unmatched ROI: This is the main advantage of digital marketing and it is a derived benefit from the other advantages mentioned above. Because with digital marketing you can avoid marketing waste by targeting the audience with high level of precision and, measure result quickly and tweak your campaign promptly to achieve optimal performance, the ROI from digital marketing is overwhelmingly superior to that of traditional marketing

DIGITAL MARKETING OPPORTUNITY FOR NIGERIA BUSINESSES

For Nigeria businesses especially, digital marketing offers incredible business building opportunities. A few pointers:

•Goetz Trillhass, Google’s Agency Business Development CEEMENA and Country Manager for new Market in Central Eastern Europe disclosed recently that internet adoption in Nigeria was growing very rapidly.

•By the middle of last year (2012), Nigeria already has the highest number of internet users in Africa and 11th globally with 48 million internet users.

•As a matter of fact, ITU projects that the number of people online in Nigeria would have risen to 70 million by 2015

The demographic profile of the people represented in the figure should particularly be of interest to any Nigeria business. The 48 million Nigerians online predominantly fall within the ages of 18 and 45, the most productive and consuming segment of any population. If you also consider the fact that these are mainly educated folks (since you must at least be able to read and write to be able to use the internet), you will see the quality of this online population

HOW TO LEVERAGE THE INTERNET TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

As pointed out on our company website, Internet marketing is a gold mine of business building opportunities for Nigerian companies. But just as it is in literal gold mining where success is dependent on the choice of the field to mine, mining equipment and, the expertise of the miners, so it is in the mining of business building opportunities on the internet. To successfully leverage the internet, you need a level of digital marketing expertise to enable you make the right selection of channels, tools and, personnel.

If you can afford it, you could engage a professional digital marketing agency. However, if you are very low on budget, you could learn to master the basics of digital marketing yourself. There are tons of resources on the internet that will help you grow your digital marketing skills. Useful sites include socialmediaexaminer.com for social media marketing, hubspot.com for inbound marketing and, ppchero.com for online advertising.

In our next post, we shall be discussing how to go about setting up a professional digital marketing campaign for your brand, from strategy formulation to execution to performance evaluation.